I can't make you love me
by Ami Rotter
Summary: Lily Evans hasn't alway hated James Potter; so what did he do wrong?
1. A promising friendship

It was Lily Evans was second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and she was sat on the front steps facing the quidditch pitch. She was waiting for her friend James Potter to finish training so that they could hang out.

. They were completely different and in fact she was surprised that they were friends at all. She was the booky type who loved studying and quite nights by the house fire reading. James loved to create havoc with some of the other boys and had just been picked to be the seeker of the Gryffindor team.

Their differences meant they had developed different groups of friends since they met each other on the first day. However, they still made sure to meet once a week to catch up on things. Neither of their group of friends liked the other one so they felt it best to keep it quite so they wouldn't have to deal with being told it was a bad idea.

"Finally I thought you were going to be there all night, do you realise how cold it is out here?" Lily spoke as James approached from the distance.

"I'm sorry queen Lily, but we have a big game at the weekend so training ran a little late." James grabbed Lily by the hand and pulled her off the ground.

"Well so you should be minion, keeping your queen waiting. It's just not cricket you know." She laughed and nudged her shoulder in to James.

"So where are we going today?"

"I was thinking we could go in to the divination room; the teacher never locks it and I don't think anyone will think to look in that dusty old room." She grabbed James by the hand as they ran towards the ladder that would take them up to the attic.

Lily loved hanging out with James she felt like the most important person in the world when he sat and genuinely listened to what she had to say. Most of her friends would just be waiting until she finished so they could announce the next spell that they had learnt. There was always this competition to be the best at everything and sometimes it was just tiring.

"You know we should go up to the attic more often." He giggled from below her on the ladder.

"What do you mean?" Lily was confused by the statement.

"Well the view is fantastic." He grinned cheekily.

"Next time you are going up first!" Lily look disgusted, but only for a moment, before she let out a small giggle.

"Oh, I see how it is you want to stare at mine. I think that's harassment in the work place." Lily tutted as she pulled herself through the gap in the ceiling above the ladder.

It was around eight in the evening and the sun was setting on Hogwarts; the last few rays shone in to the divination room giving in a beautiful yellow glow. Lily wished she could take a picture of it; it was so beautiful. Her little daydream was broken by James' big belly laugh.

"Oh my God Peter is practicing to become an anamagus and he's managed to get himself stuck as half rat half human." He nearly fell to the floor laughing at his friend. "I don't know why he chose a rat; it's such an ugly creature."

"I don't know why you guys are trying to become anamagi. You know you will get in to so much trouble if you get found out."

"Don't worry, we are experts at this sort of thing, we will never get found out." He had a big grin on his face.

"I don't know about that, maybe we should help Peter or perhaps you will get found out." Lily said motioning out the window.

"Fine!" James didn't seem pleased about the prospect, but he followed Lily back out of the divination room and out in to the grounds; where they found Peter Pettigrew lying on the floor struggling to get rid of his rat nose and tail. Instead of helping James stood there laughing until his sides hurt.

"I'm sorry but I don't think your insensitive friend is going to help." Lily said pulling her wand out of her pocket. "Now just stay still so I can get this right, we don't really need to change any more of you." Peter squealed lightly as Lily changed him back so that he was fully human.

"Thank you so much Lily, I'm glad you passed by. I don't know what I would have done if it was only James here to help me." He let out a weak smile.

"Oh shut up, I would have helped you." James said indignantly.

"Yeah, but only after laughing at me for half an hour." Peter glared at him before running off back into the castle.

"That was mean you're supposed to be his friend." She slapped him on the arm.

"It's not like he was dying otherwise I would have helped him. Look let's just go for a walk down to the lake and then we can catch up." Lily and James made their way down towards the lake that dominated the school grounds. So much had happened that week neither could hold on to it much longer. Lily had stories of her friend who had boasted he had created a new potion, but merely managed to burn his own eyebrows off. James told of his midnight adventures in the teacher's lounge.

Eventually the biting cold of the winter forced them to go back to the castle before the managed to freeze anything off. It was much later than they had realised and they had to dodge the prefects who were now roaming the school halls.

"Ok so we'll meet same place and time next week?" James said once they reached the safety of the common room.

"Yeah, but next time don't make me wait in the cold for you!" She giggled.

"Don't worry, I'm looking forward to it already I won't make you wait again." James pulled Lily in for a goodnight hug before they went to bed. As they pulled out of the hug he stopped only centimetres from her face. Lily could feel her heart beat harder as his lips moved towards hers.

"You know I'm so hungry I could eat one of those thestrals even though I can't see them." They both looked at Sirius who had just come down the stairs.

"Right I'm off to bed, goodnight." Lily whispered before heading up the stairs to the girl's dorm.

"You know Sirius Black you really have the worst timing ever!" She heard James tell his best friend.


	2. You ruined everything

Lily lay in her bed for a few moments, thinking about the incident with James last night, before she got up to get ready for class. It was strange thinking about their almost kiss that would have happened if Sirius hadn't come down the stairs at that moment.

Think about it though she wasn't sure how thing would go if it had happened. Would they just stay friends would they become an item? After much thought she decided that it would be nice to take her friendship with James a little further along.

"Lily." Her friend Sian's voice broke her daydream. "You've put your top on back to front." Lily looked down and she could see the label from the back of her top sticking up towards her chin.

"Thanks, I'm a little bit tired." She didn't want to bring attention to the real reason she wasn't able to dress herself properly this morning.

"Yeah you must be, just pay attention to your shoes, because they won't be as comfortable like that." Sian laughed before heading down towards the common room. A few moments afterwards Lily joined her friends who were sat in the far corner. On her way over she bumped head first in to James.

"Oh sorry." She blushed immediately.

"Hi, Lily did you sleep well?" James was suddenly shy too; which surprised her, because she thought nothing would turn James into a bumbling shy person.

"Yeah, you?"

"Yeah, so are you well prepared for this test in History of Magic today?" He glanced over to his friends who were watching them with great interest.

"I think so, but you never know." Lily giggled. "I should go over to my friends before they start to ask questions."

"Me too, maybe we should meet in the common room later to talk about things."

"Ok see you later." With that they went to their respective friends.

"What were you talking about with Potter?" Mary, another girl from her dorm, asked.

"Oh nothing, he was asking if he could borrow some notes from me for the test in class." Lily found a spot on one of the chairs to sit down.

"That boy is a waste of space; I can't believe he is asking you for notes a couple of hours before the test." Mary didn't like James ever since he turned her down for a date. Lily didn't even know where Mary had planned on going on this date as they weren't allowed out of the school.

"He wasn't asking for him he's already revised; he was asking for Sirius who really is a waste of space." She didn't like her friends talking badly about James.

A couple of hours later they made their way towards their History of Magic class for their middle of the year test. Lily was pretty confident she could get full marks as she'd been revising every day for the past two weeks.

"Come on Potter just do it." Sirius was pushing his friend in the shoulder.

"No I can't do it it's not fair." He replied.

"No what's not fair is she gets top marks every time we have a test and then boast about it. We need to bring her back down to ground." Sirius continued.

"Sirius maybe if you studied a little bit then maybe you could do a little better on these tests." Remus Lupin joined in the conversation.

"Thank you Lupin at least someone agrees with me." James indicated towards his friend.

"Come on, or I'll tell all those girls that follow you around about that time you drank too much and wet your bed." Sirius knew he had finally trumped his friend.

"OK fine, but I don't want to do this." James picked up the test cheat sheet that Sirius had carefully prepared the night before. He walked over towards where Lily chatting with her friends; he wanted to try and do this without her seeing it would be much more difficult if she spotted him. Unfortunately she did spot him as he walked over, he tried to turn around but she knew that he had seen her.

"Hi Lily, I just wanted to check what time you are free so we can talk tonight?" While he was talking he dropped the sheet on her bag that was next to her chair.

"How about jut after dinner, while everyone is in the common room we can go for a walk and you know discuss things."

"Sure sounds good to me." James smiled and as the teacher came in to the classroom he gave Lily a kiss on the cheek while no one was looking.

Lily watched as the teacher handed around the papers and everybody immediately opened them and started scribbling. She was fine until she heard the words "what's this?" coming from her teacher behind her.

She turned around to see her teacher standing there holding a small piece of paper. "Lily I asked you a question; do you know what this is?"

"Erm no sir." Her mouth had suddenly gone completely dry.

"Right Lily could you go to my office and I will come to see you after class." Lily just wanted to floor to swallow her up right now; everyone was looking at her as she left the room. It was the longest hour of her life waiting for the teacher to come back to his office.

"So Lily can you explain to me why you had a cheat sheet on the top of your bag?"

"Not really sir, I don't know how it got there. I would never use one of those you have to believe me I have been studying for this test for three weeks." After much arguing with the teacher she managed to pursued him that she hadn't been trying to cheat and not to give her a detention.

Lily couldn't believe that someone had put their cheat sheet on her bag and then not even stood up for her when she was falsely accused. She spent the whole day trying to figure out who had possibly put it there. She could just imagine her parents now being so disappointed in her if it had got back to them that she had cheated on a test, even if it wasn't true.

"Hi Lily, I have something to tell you." Sian said as she got to the dining hall for dinner. "I was talking to Molly Prewett earlier on and she told me that her friend Fran Hindes saw James Potter dropping the cheat sheet on to your bag.

"Are you sure?" Lily couldn't believe that it was him.

"Yeah pretty sure, she said when he came over to talk to you he dropped some paper on the floor and didn't pick it up." Sian looked really sorry.

"I'm going to kill him!" Lily said she ate most of her dinner with force; jamming her knife and fork in to the plate. Once it was finished she stormed up to the common room and waited for James to get there. "You, outside now!" She said once he arrived.

"What why?" She didn't answer so James just had to follow her in to the grounds.

"You were the one who put that paper on my bag! How could you do that? Why didn't you say anything?"

"Sirius made me do it he was going to reveal an embarrassing secret about me. I'm so sorry I really didn't want you to get in to trouble." James' eyes started to tear up.

"That doesn't change anything you should have stood up to Sirius. He is such an idiot you know he's bringing you down. You could be such a better person without him." Lily shouted, a couple of people walking past started looking at them.

"Don't say that about him, he is my best friend. Look Lily I'm sorry about what I did and I am truly sorry, but don't bring my friends with him."

"James Potter I can't believe I thought you were one of the nice guys. Please never talk to me again!" With that Lily stormed back off towards the dorm and cried herself to sleep that night.


	3. Trouble at the dance

Lily was sat in the library preparing for her NEWTs, with several huge books open in front of her. She couldn't believe it was only a month before she was finished school and she would be off to try and get a job in the ministry.

"Come on Lily we need to start getting ready." Sian said closing some of the books on the desk.

"I'm going to stay here and do some revision for the exams." Lily said opening the books again.

"No you are not, you have been revising solidly now for months. It's time you had some fun, plus it's the last time were going to have a party before we leave school." Sian dragged Lily away towards the Gryffindor common room. The school was having a party for all of the seventh years to celebrate the end of classes before their exams.

"But, I really need to do well in these exams if I want to become an arour." Lily protested and she was dragged down the corridor.

"Yeah, yeah don't we all." Sian didn't sound interested in Lily's protests. "You can revise tomorrow; one night is not going to hurt you at all. Now we are going to get ready for this thing and you are going to talk to some boys at it. You've been moping around so much since you broke up with Jeremy."

"Fine, but it doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy it." Lily started rummaging through her trunk to find the only dress she had brought with her.

"You will enjoy it if it's the last thing I ever do; you know you will have to see Jeremy at some point."

"I have seen him you know we do have classes together. I just don't want to have to endure a night having to see her hanging off his arm." Lily had been dating Jeremy, the keeper for the Hufflepuff quidditch team, for two years, but he decided to end it when a pretty new third year joined the team.

"We don't have much time left at school, just suck it up and get on with it." Sian had never been one for sympathy, but she was still Lily's best friend. Once Mary arrived the three of them spent the next few hours getting ready to party the night away. Lily was set on her bed once she was ready and took the time to look around her room; she couldn't believe that her time at Hogwarts had passed so quickly and now she was about to be ejected in to the real world.

"Right let's go before I change my mind about this whole thing." Lily walked out of the dorm in her floor length emerald dress. They made their way to the great hall where there was music already playing loudly. The hall had been decorated in gold with giant chocolate fountains in every corner.

"Right if anyone needs me I will be by the chocolate for the next few minutes." Mary walked straight off to the fountain in the nearest corner. Lily was dragged towards Sian's boyfriend Max and his friends by Sian.

"Seriously I can talk to people on my own I don't need to be forced to talk to Max's idiot friends." She said pulling her hand out of Sian's grip.

"You do need to be forced or otherwise you will just be sitting in a corner somewhere in a huff." Lily conceded and stood talking to one of Max's friends. She had to admit that an hour later she was actually enjoying herself; Max's friend was very interesting and not to mention very cute. Things were going well until she saw Jeremy walking towards her.

"Hey Lily," he gave her that smile she loved.

"Leave me alone Jer' I don't want to talk to you." Lily turned back around to the group she was talking to; ignoring Jeremy behind him.

"Please Lily I just want to talk to you." He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the other side of the room. Sian attempted to stop him, but Lily gave her the signal to tell her it was ok.

"What do you want? I thought I made it clear last month that I didn't want anything to do with you ever again." Lily crossed her arms defensively.

"I want to say sorry and I would like to give us another go."

"Give us another go? There is no such thing as us Jeremy and you made sure of that." Lily barged passed him.

"Please Lily, I miss you." She could see the tear welling up in his eyes and they were already rolling down her cheeks.

"Oh well that makes it all ok then!" Lily shouted. "You're only coming crawling back because your pretty little girlfriend got caught with someone else. I'm not going to be your plan b so just leave me alone." Lily ran out of the Great Hall with the tears streaming from her eyes; she kept running until she managed to bump in to something. She looked up from the ground that she had just fallen on to and saw none other than James Potter with an outstretched hand to help her up.

"What's wrong Lilykins?" He said while helping her back to her feet.

"Nothing, I'm fine." Lily was abrupt, he hadn't called he that since she stopped talking to him.

"Come on talk to me, you can't ignore me for the rest of your life."

"I can try." Lily walked off up the steps towards the Gryffindor common room but James didn't give up and followed her.

"Please talk to me Lily; I've said sorry so many times what more do you want from me?"

"That you didn't do it that would have been nice." James followed her all the way to the common room and managed to stop her before she got to the steps of the girls dorms. He remembered the last time he tried to go up those stairs he had to get Sirius to help him to see Madam Pomfrey so that no one would see his face. "Could you just let me explain myself."

"Fine." Lily finally conceded and sat down in one of the chairs.

"Look I know it's not going to change a thing but I just want to say that everything I did was under protest. Sirius said that he would tell everybody that I wet my bed once when I drank too much after practice."

"So you think that our friendship was less important than your pride."

"Well no, but oh God I don't know." James leant back in the chair. "Look, I was stupid I suppose at the time a valued my pride only a tiny bit more, but only a tiny bit. If it makes you feel better you can tell everybody about it; I just want to be on good terms again before we leave school.

"Give me some time to think about it ok."

"Good, I have missed you." James couldn't explain what he did next, but he gave Lily a kiss on the cheek. Lily sat and watched him walk off as she put her hand to where he kissed her.


	4. Secrets revealed

James was confused he couldn't understand why all the girls were giggling when they saw him. He'd looked in the mirror and there was nothing wrong with him he was looking as good as ever. "This has to stop" he thought as he headed towards the great hall.

"Hey what's wrong?" Remus said to a worried looking James.

"Girls keep laughing at me and I don't know why." James started grabbing food and put it on his plate.

"Well perhaps they've come to realise that you're an idiot and I am the much better choice." Sirius joined his two friends.

"Yeah in your dreams, I will always be the better choice." James looked down the Gryffindor table and saw Lily having breakfast with her friends. He could feel his heart going faster and wished he hadn't made that stupid mistake all those years ago. She nearly kissed him and then he went and stuffed the whole thing up.

"James what's this rumour about you wetting your bed?" Arthur Weasley sat down in the space next to James.

"What are you talking about?" James' eyes widened.

"I was talking to Molly and she said somebody wrote in the girls toilets that you wet the bed."

"Well it's not true; did she say who wrote it?" James asked already knowing full well who had written the note in the girl's toilets.

"No she doesn't know, but I think you might have annoyed a girl."

"Yeah I think I must have, I have an idea." James didn't want to draw any attention to himself so he waited until breakfast was over before he went to talk to Lily. He didn't actually expect Lily to tell the whole school that he had wet the bed in his first year when he'd had too much water to drink. Hopefully it would open the door for them to be friends again or maybe it was just her idea of revenge.

"Hey I'll see you in defence against the dark arts." Remus patted him on the shoulder before walking off up the staircase.

"Hey Lily." He ran down the corridor after her. "Can I talk to you?"

"Yeah sure." She remained in her group of friends.

"In private?" They walked over to a secluded part of the corridor before he continued talking. "Did you write that note in the girl's toilets?"

"Well you know all's fair in love and war; you got me in trouble with the teachers so I let the girls know your little secret." Lily giggled, which she never normally did, but having James stand so close to her made her come over all girly.

"I didn't think you were actually going to tell people about it."

"I don't think it well dent your reputation with girls they'll still be all over you in a couple of days." Lily's breathing was getting slightly heavier.

"How about you, did I go down in your estimation?" James took two big steps towards Lily who now had her back against the wall.

"Oh James, you couldn't have gone any further down in my estimation." James' face dropped.

"Did you really think that badly of me?"

"James be quiet your ruining the moment." Lily smiled at him.

"What moment?" James looked very confused. "Oh, this moment." He started to move closer to her; he couldn't believe that she was about to let him get any way near her. When he was inches away from her lips, he could almost feel them; Peeves came flying around the corner.

"Students being naughty in school!" He screamed down the corridor.

"Come on we should go to class before we get in to trouble." Lily started to walk towards their defence against the dark arts class.

"No you're not going anywhere yet." He grabbed Lily by the wrist and pulled her in close to give her a long kiss. "I'm sorry but I'm not making the same mistake again and let you go." Everything in Lily's head was telling her that she shouldn't be doing this, but she didn't care.

"I think you should be getting to class right now." Professor Dumbledore said nonchalantly as he walked passed them. Lily's face went bright red as they ran to class. She couldn't believe that she had let James Potter kiss her after the many years she had told herself that she didn't want anything to do with him. She had been lying to herself; she had never stopped liking him even though she hated him for what he did.

Lily ran in to the class and sat down with her friends who were already opening their text books. "Sorry we're late professor, we were in the library." It was almost impossible for Lily to get in real trouble as all the teachers loved her because she worked so hard. She ignored the looks from her friends that she was getting and stared intently at her text book.

"So," Mary turned her head when she felt it was safe to talk to her friend.

"So what?" Lily just kept reading her book.

"What were you really doing with Potter?" Sian added.

"Nothing we were just talking about the homework for potions." Lily lied.

"Oh fudge, even you don't go to the library that early in the morning." Mary waved her hand.

"Girls please be quiet and keep reading the task." The professor said standing on the opposite side of their desk.

"Sorry," they chimed back.

"Look I'll tell you later." Mary just smiled at her, why did she think she could keep anything a secret from her friends? She spent the rest of the lesson not really paying attention to her work and just thinking about the kiss James had given her in the hall. When he wasn't looking she would stare over at him. They didn't get a chance to talk for the rest of the day, but once dinner was over she grabbed him and took him in to the castle grounds. He just followed her until she stopped walking, which was for a good few minutes.

"Are you going to ravish me Lily Evans?" He moved over towards her and kissed her hard on the lips.

"Slow down there Potter; we need to lay down some ground rules. I do really like you, and yes in that way, but we also need to work on being friends again. You have to let me know I can trust you 100%."

"Of course you can Lilykins. I promise I won't be a complete idiot again."

"Well I'm not expecting miracles I just don't want to always be second best to your friends. I also want people to know about us; it didn't really work the whole nobody knowing we were friends."

"Don't worry, I want everybody to know that we're together, but be warned you will be known as the girl who went out with the guy who wet his bed." They both laughed at the thought.

"I'm prepared for that." She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in for the kiss she had been waiting for a long time.


End file.
